CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB Comments turned off

The Biden Military Witch-hunt Warren Beatty

Posted By on August 4th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/08/the_biden_military_witchhunt.html

A manufactured panic over the January 6 rally has provided Biden and his flunkies with an excuse to attack the U.S. military.  The Biden administration has implemented an effort to root out political “extremism” in the military in order to work toward a military with more ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’, despite little evidence of any such extremists actually operating within the ranks:

“But a large majority of those charged have no known connections to established extremist groups… Experts say there’s little evidence that current or former members of the military are more susceptible to radicalization than the general population.  Still, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has called combating extremism in the ranks a top priority.”

So let’s examine what Austin has done.  As head of the Department of Defense (DoD), Austin created the Countering Extremism Working Group (CEWG).  However, the potential unintended consequences of its anti-extremism effort could harm recruiting if religious Americans or those on the political right feel unwelcome in the military ranks.  The DoD’s definition of extremism is so broad and imprecise that some retired officers and military analysts fear it could inadvertently include traditional Catholics, Republicans, and people who aren’t racist or violent but simply choose conservative, pro-life politics.  For example, DoD considers “‘patriot’ extremism” to include any non-extreme position, such as conservative views, religious teachings such as those against abortion or LGBTQ lifestyles, and failure to actively support gay rights demonstrations or mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations.  They are therefore legitimate targets for the CEWG.

Further, as a Revolver article says, if one accepts the DoD’s ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ policy as a matter of national security, any conviction that doesn’t agree with Biden’s (or Austin’s) perspective of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the military can be considered a national security threat.  Thus all policies and personnel that supported Donald Trump’s border wall, illegal alien deportations, DACA criticism, the military’s transgender ban, and military bases named after Confederate generals can be considered an extremist and a threat to national security.  The CEWG is a mechanism for eliminating in the military anything or anybody Biden (or more likely his flunky Austin) doesn’t like.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Covid: It’s like smallpox! Alan Dershowitz says you must take the vaccine!! Or else! Diane Bederman

Posted By on August 4th, 2021

https://dianebederman.com/covid-its-like-smallpox-alan-dershowitz-says-you-must-take-the-vaccine-or-else/

I am not anti vaccines, nor do I believe for a moment that the mRNA gene therapy vaccine for Covid 19 constitutes a “crime against humanity.” However, listening to both sides and demanding a thorough and scientific statistical analysis deserves attention…..rsk

Remember when we were told 18 months ago that we needed a lockdown to flatten the curve for fear the medical establishment would be overwhelmed? And remember we were just told we must take the  vaccine or the medical establishment would be overwhelmed? This is the science? No one should be lockdown or coerced, if not forced, to take an experimental vaccine because of a failing health care system.

Seems We the People are not entitled to know everything there is about the Covid vaccine and side effects. If those promoting mandatory vaccination are so sure of themselves, why is there so much censorship of those with differing opinions?   Science by definition calls for the asking of questions. How do we know who is right or wrong if we cannot read all views? Have we in the West become that stupid that we need our government to tell us right from wrong via social media censorship?

The editor-in-chief, Julian Reichelt, of Germany’s top newspaper Bild has apologized for the news outlet’s fear-driven coverage of COVID, specifically to children who were told “that they were going to murder their grandma.”

“When a state steals the rights of a child, it must prove that by doing so it protects him against concrete and imminent danger. This proof has never been provided. It has been replaced by propaganda presenting the child as a vector of the pandemic.”

Julian Reichelt noted how moderate voices who attempted to offer calmer perspectives on the pandemic “were never invited to the expert table” and urged viewers “don’t believe this lie,” when encountering alarmist proclamations from the government.

Thankfully, a large team of more than 1,000 lawyers and more than 10,000 medical experts, led by Dr. Reiner Fuellmich, has initiated legal proceedings against the CDC, WHO and the Davos Group for crimes against humanity regarding the mRNA gene therapy vaccine for Covid 19.

MEDIA Comments turned off

AP and Reuters Team up with Twitter to Patrol Political Dissent as ‘Misinformation’ By Eric Lendrum

Posted By on August 4th, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/08/03/ap-and-reuters-team-up-with-twitter-to-patrol-political-dissent-as-misinformation/

Two of the largest news publications in the country, the Associated Press (AP) and Reuters, have teamed up with one of the leading tech giants, Twitter, in a new partnership to crack down on “misinformation” and “elevate credible information,” the Daily Caller reports.

Twitter confirmed the new alliance in a blog post, saying that the two publications would be responsible for identifying “misleading” information, and to help Twitter expand its efforts to mediate trending stories, “especially where facts are in dispute.” The websites will also help Twitter staff whenever they lack “sufficient expertise or access to a high enough volume of reputable reporting.”

“This program is just part of our ongoing efforts to help people understand the conversation happening on our service,” the Twitter blog post continued. “People experience a range of public conversations on Twitter every day, and we’re committed to continuing our work to elevate credible information and context.”

Tom Januszewski, a spokesman for the Associated Press, said that the AP aims “to expand the reach of factual journalism.” Reuters’ Hazel Baker made the questionable claim that “trust, accuracy, and impartiality are at the heart of what Reuters does every day,” and that “those values drive our commitment to stopping the spread of misinformation.”

Twitter, along with other Big Tech platforms, have significantly increased their efforts to crack down on political dissent in recent months, most notably by permanently banning President Donald Trump in January, while he was still the sitting President of the United States. Other platforms such as YouTube and Facebook have either outright banned, or attached “warning labels” to, content that raises doubts about the 2020 presidential election, the efficiency of coronavirus restrictions, and other controversial subjects.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The most hypocritical birthday party ever? By Jeannie DeAngelis

Posted By on August 4th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/08/the_most_hypocritical_birthday_party_ever.html

As we all know, conceited, narcissist Barack Obama has never been one pass up an opportunity to be worshipped by fawning sycophants, especially if the worshippers are rich and famous. That’s why, on August 7, the multi-millionaire/community organizer will host his own star-studded 60th birthday party.  

According to a source at The Hill, “It’s going to be big.” 

As the nation hurts, Hollywood’s crème de la crème will descend, en masse, on Martha’s Vineyard to attend a gazillion-dollar birthday party feting Kenya’s most famous imposter.

The swanky gala will take place on the grounds of Obama’s 30-acre/$12,000,000, summer compound located on the waterfront in Edgartown. Attending to the needs of A-list leftist race baiters and politically correct sympathizers will be 200 ethnically-diverse servants who will ensure the champagne flows and the hors d’oeuvres include racially sensitive cuisine.

Historically, aristocrats make merry while masked commoners struggle to breathe, subsist, and sustain a respectable lifestyle. With 500 guests, 200 servers, and a hairdresser on-site to style a Pearl Jam band member’s hair, Obama and Michelle’s haughty self-indulgence personifies the “rules for thee but not for me” mentality that is pervasive among a ruling class who parties while imposing despotic diktats on the peons.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Obama Birthday Bash to Smash All Known Woke Values By Jack Cashill

Posted By on August 4th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/08/obama_birthday_bash_to_smash_all_known_woke_values.html

Forget about the violation of Covid protocols — those are a passing fancy on the left.  Barack Obama’s sixtieth birthday bash this coming weekend threatens to violate just about every progressive virtue the Obamas and their woke pals have ever signaled.

Officially, Obama’s birthday falls on August 4.  As I will explain, that may not be the real date, but the “optics” problem facing Barry and his bourgeois buddies is a more pressing one.

As planned, some 475 invited guests and at least 200 worker bees will swarm the Obamas’ waterfront estate on Martha’s Vineyard, a tony little island off the coast of Massachusetts.  In addition to their vax cards, I suspect the worker bees and even the guests will have to show a photo ID.  Apparently, birthday invites are more vulnerable than ballots in Obama world.

On a side note, rumor has it that the ever cautious Georgia congressman, Hank Johnson, passed on the invite for fear that the whole island would become so overly populated that it would tip over and capsize.

Among the invited guests are George Clooney, Steven Spielberg, and Oprah.  I could be wrong, but my guess is that these and the Obamas’ other jet-setting friends are not going to fly commercial.

The Obamas bought this nearly 7,000-square-foot waterfront home in the fall of 2019.  They paid nearly $12 million for their new digs.  No big deal.  They had pocketed a reported $65 million advance for their respective memoirs from Penguin Random House.

In his 2020 memoir A Promised Land, Obama worries that he did not do enough to deal with “America’s escalating inequality.”  He wonders if he should have tried “to exact more economic pain” on corporate America in the hope of creating a more just economic order.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Free State, Serf State: Kurt Schlichter

Posted By on August 4th, 2021

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2021/08/04/free-state-serf-state-n2593491

I flew out to Texas and back to California last weekend, and boy, are my arms tired and my patience tested. To leave the sordid hellhole that is Los Angeles for the functioning area around Houston (the city itself is a blue stronghold and a failed state, though less comprehensively than LA) is to see a vivid contrast between red success and blue dystopia. If only someone had written a bestselling series of conservative action novels about that scenario.

Also, President Asterisk is getting more senile by the day. He’s recently claimed he was an 18-wheel rig driver; let’s get him a chimp and make a reality show called “JB and the Bear.” At least with a monkey, this appalling fiasco might be amusing.

The pride of the libs, sausage-esqe Alexander Vindman, wrote a book, of a sort, and astonishingly it’s not a cookbook.

Two Americas and One of Them Sucks

The first thing you notice in Houston is that the airport is not a complete disaster. It is a partial disaster, with a lot of construction, but it is not as comprehensively miserable as LAX. Everyone and his brother – excuse my gender assumptions – was flying on a recent Friday morning and I had to drop the family and go find some off-airport parking lot like a sucker. LAX was wall-to-wall with people leaving the Golden State. Houston was civilized, and the luggage was there when we got to baggage claim. Of course, it took a half-hour to walk there, but anyway…

There are few bums. I saw one or two, but I did not see the massive collections of shanties, lean-tos, and shebangs that make up the urban villages of the damned you see all over Los Angeles. It could be the weather – there’s this thing called humidity outside of Cali, and it rains in summer if you can believe it – but I think it’s that in Texas you’re just not allowed to be a hobo. Maybe in Austin, but not in the Houston suburbs.

You can carry a gun, like a citizen. That’s cool. And there are a bunch of awesome breweries. Maybe don’t mix those two. The food is good. And people are nice. People in LA are not mean. They just don’t care. They got their thing and you got yours. In Texas, people say “Hi.” They also don’t wear masks like a bunch of sissies. That right there is enough to grant this round of the competition to the Lone Star State. No wonder everyone is moving there.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Clean, Green and Absolutely Sustainable :Walter Starck

Posted By on August 4th, 2021

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2021/08/clean-green-and-absolutely-sustainable/

One of history’s most valuable lessons is that much of what is widely believed at any one time will later be viewed as nonsense, and it is vanishingly unlikely that this does not still apply.  On the contrary, our current system of education is now actively pursuing an indoctrination in postmodern thought which seeks to deny, demean and dismiss the all-too-brief ascendancy of reason and evidence as embodied in the scientific method.  The impetus for this is simple. Reason and evidence threaten established careers, status and beliefs held dear in academia, and it is they who determine the content of education.

Resistance to this corruption of science is fading in favour of the notion of an innate, intuitively understood ‘higher’ morality.  Only the uncompromising clarity of the consequences of errors and false beliefs leaves engineering as one of the last remaining redoubts of simple evidence based truth.

A primacy of reason and evidence over authority and faith has been the essential foundation for the extraordinary advance in the human condition arising from Western Civilisation over the past few centuries.  However, this is now under existential threat by a rising surge of totalitarian ideology.  In a time of unprecedented prosperity, ease, and comfort, it appears a substantial slice of the populace is unhappy and seeking some greater meaning and purpose in life, albeit something which also requires minimal personal cost and effort. Public virtue signalling by conspicuously approving or disapproving ideas of negligible personal consequence has become epidemic, and there is a rich smorgasbord of such concerns from which to choose.  Environmental threats, various social inequalities and sexual aberrations, especially relating to gender, are currently the fashion.

The idea of an imminent and dire threat to the global climate from fossil fuel emissions and the necessity of a complete shift to wind and solar power is especially favoured. Although there is strong evidence to indicate the threat is far more uncertain and less severe than is being claimed and the limitations of the so-called renewable energy are manifold, reason and evidence rarely ever seem able to induce a committed believer to reconsider their faith. 

Fortunately, in this instance there is another option, and it offers a no-regrets solution that conforms far better to the unfolding reality.  It also affords the added bonus of avoiding a detour into the dustbin of history for those who cannot wake up and catch up.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Torching of Canadian Coptic Church ‘Unacceptable’ but ‘Understandable’ Canadian church-hate comes for Coptic Christians. Raymond Ibrahim

Posted By on August 4th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/08/torching-canadian-coptic-church-unacceptable-raymond-ibrahim/

A Coptic Christian church was recently burned to the ground—not in Egypt, where the torching of Coptic churches is not an uncommon occurrence, but in Canada, also known as “the church-burning centre of the Western world.”

In the early morning hours of July 19, St. George Coptic Orthodox Church in Surrey, which served 500 families and provided food for the homeless, was set aflame and completely destroyed.  Only one charred wall remains standing.

According to the report, “The cause of the fire is still under investigation, but Surrey RCMP [police] said it is being treated as ‘suspicious.’ The St. George Coptic Orthodox Church was also the target of an attempted arson just last Wednesday, although authorities do not know if the two incidents are connected.”

What, exactly, do Canadian mounted police find “suspicious”?  The church was clearly targeted for arson, as evidenced by the fact that it was targeted for arson a few days earlier, and at the very same time (between 2:30-4:00 am).  On July 14, surveillance video captured a woman lighting a fire, one that failed to catch, at the church door.  That the “authorities do not know if the two incidents are connected” seems like wishful thinking.

What is deserving of the term “suspicious” is that, days after the church reported the first failed arson attempt to police—which should have led to better awareness and security for the church—another successful arson attempt took place.

After expressing its “immense sadness and pain” at the loss of the church, a statement from the Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Mississauga called on Premier John Horgan and the authorities to expedite the investigation, correctly observing that “The timing of this fire … raises many questions about what the authorities did to protect our church, especially considering the attempt on the same church this past Wednesday.”

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Schools Must Resist Destructive Anti-racist Demands Contrary to what activists seem to believe, campuses are not bastions of social injustice. By John McWhorter

Posted By on August 4th, 2021

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/when-antiracist-manifestos-become-antiracist-wrecking-balls/617841/

After George Floyd’s killing last spring, protests have flowered on many campuses, and so have manifestos demanding that the schools fully commit themselves to an anti-racist agenda. More are likely as the school restarts and we move into spring. Some may feel that the enlightened course is to simply satisfy these demands out of a commitment to America’s ongoing racial reckoning. However, just as many will see a mismatch between actual conditions on these campuses and the nature and tone of the manifestos, as well as the protest actions usually accompanying them. Administrations must decide where racial reckoning becomes racial wrecking ball, even amid a sincere commitment to addressing racism both open and systemic.

At Princeton last summer, 350 faculty members signed an anti-racist manifesto that described the school as founded upon the pillars of its oppressive past, requiring an overhaul of faculty, curriculum, and admissions procedures to fumigate the campus of an all-permeating racism. Its nearly 50 demands included “exponentially” increasing the number of faculty of color; mandatory anti-racist training focused on identifying participants’ “vulnerability” and fostering “productive discomfort”; rewarding the “invisible work done by faculty of color with course relief and summer salary;” and most controversially, the formation of “a committee composed entirely of faculty that would oversee the investigation and discipline of racist behaviors, incidents, research, and publication on the part of faculty.”

At Bryn Mawr College, anti-racist activists accused of intimidating students and faculty not actively involved in the protest essentially shut down the school last semester. Here, the claim was that Bryn Mawr is infested with a climate of racism that threatens Black students’ survival, and the “strikers,” as they titled themselves, demanded additional funding for the Black student center, a halt to evidently systemic “violence” against disabled students, and payment (as well as grade forgiveness) for protesters’ anti-racist “work” during the “strike.” President Kim Cassidy gave the “strikers” leeway, allowing some professors to cancel their classes or reformulate them into tutorials on anti-racism. Cassidy apologized for characterizing the strikers and their actions in a negative light.

At New York City’s Dalton School, an elite private K–12 prep school traditionally a conduit to the Ivies, 129 faculty and staff members this summer signed a letter circulated among faculty, staff, and parents that was later leaked to the Naked Dollar blog. The letter recommends, among other things, redirecting 50 percent of donations to New York City public schools; the hiring of 12 full-time diversity officers, as well as a full-time supporter of Black students with complaints; the elimination of tracked courses by 2023 if Black students don’t perform as well in them as white students; public anti-racism statements from all employees; and an overhaul of the entire curriculum to reflect diversity narratives.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Private Schools Have Become Truly Obscene Elite schools breed entitlement, entrench inequality—and then pretend to be engines of social change. By Caitlin Flanagan (March 26, 2021)

Posted By on August 4th, 2021

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/04/private-schools-are-indefensible/618078/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

This article was published online on March 11, 2021.

Updated at 7:42 p.m. ET on March 26, 2021.

Dalton is one of the most selective private schools in Manhattan, in part because it knows the answer to an important question: What do hedge-funders want?

They want what no one else has. At Dalton, that means an “archaeologist in residence,” a teaching kitchen, a rooftop greenhouse, and a theater proscenium lovingly restored after it was “destroyed by a previous renovation.”

“Next it’ll be a heliport,” said a member of the local land-use committee after the school’s most recent remodel, which added two floors—and 12,000 square feet—to one of its four buildings, in order to better prepare students “for the exciting world they will inherit.” Today Dalton; tomorrow the world itself.

So it was a misstep when Jim Best, the head of school—relatively new, and with a salary of $700,000—said that Dalton parents couldn’t have something they wanted. The school would not hold in-person classes in the fall. This might have gone over better if the other elite Manhattan schools were doing the same. But Trinity was opening. Ditto the fearsome girls’ schools: Brearley, Nightingale-Bamford, Chapin, Spence.

How long could the Dalton parent—the $54,000-a-kid Dalton parent—watch her children slip behind their co-equals? More to the point, how long could she be expected to open The New York Times and see articles about one of the coronavirus pandemic’s most savage inequalities: that private schools were allowed to open when so many public schools were closed, their students withering in front of computer screens and suffering all manner of neglect?

The Dalton parent is not supposed to be on the wrong side of a savage inequality. She is supposed to care about savage inequalities; she is supposed to murmur sympathetically about savage inequalities while scanning the news, her gentle concern muffled by the jet-engine roar of her morning blowout. But she isn’t supposed to fall victim to one.

In early October, stern emails began arriving in Best’s inbox. A group of 20 physicians with children at the school wrote that they were “frustrated and confused and better hope to understand the school’s thought processes behind the virtual model it has adopted.” This was not a group with a high tolerance for frustration. “Please tell us what are the criteria for re-opening fully in person,” they wrote. And they dropped heavy artillery: “From our understanding, several of our peer schools are not just surviving but thriving.”

Shortly after the physicians weighed in, more than 70 parents with children at the lower school signed a petition asking for the school to open. “Our children are sad, confused and isolated,” they wrote, as though describing the charges of a Victorian orphanage. They were questioning why “everyone around them gets to go to school when they do not.”

Parents at elite private schools sometimes grumble about taking nothing from public schools yet having to support them via their tax dollars. But the reverse proposition is a more compelling argument. Why should public-school parents—why should anyone—be expected to support private schools? Exeter has 1,100 students and a $1.3 billion endowment. Andover, which has 1,150 students, is on track to take in $400 million in its current capital campaign. And all of this cash, glorious cash, comes pouring into the countinghouse 100 percent tax-free.